NO weightlifting and boxing in the next Olympics?Don’t look now but that’s a distinct possibility.
With the weightlifting and boxing federations bogged down by leadership issues, the International Olympic Committee has given itself more power to remove disciplines in the Olympic calendar and the two disciplines could likely face the axe.
“The International Olympic Committee voted in the new powers amid prolonged issues with the leadership of weightlifting and boxing,” the Associated Press was quoted as saying in an article it published last Sunday.
“Both sports already had their quota of athletes cut for the 2024 Paris Olympics and weightlifting could be dropped entirely.”
Among the two sports, weightlifting looms to be excluded in the next Olympics due to internal issues with its world governing body.
“Weightlifting is most at risk of being cut from the Paris Olympics because of long-term doping cases and governance issues, including financial corruption. The International Weightlifting Federation was led for two decades until last year by long-time former IOC member Tamás Aján. The governing body’s problems were detailed in an investigative program by German broadcaster ARD.
“Boxing at the Tokyo Games was taken out of the control of the International Boxing Association two years ago after doubts about the integrity of bouts at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics and IOC concerns about its presidential elections. The IOC will now look at boxing’s performance at the Tokyo Olympics and AIBA’s ongoing reforms under President Umar Kremlev before deciding whether to reinstate its official recognition.”
This would be bad news for the Philippines, which won a breakthrough gold medal in Tokyo through weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz and three other medals — two silver and one bronze — in boxing.
Diaz, 30, bagged the gold in the women’s 55 kgs, Nesthy Petecio settled for the silver after losing by unanimous decision to Sena Irie of Japan in the women’s featherweight final and Carlo Paalam also won a siler in the flyweight class.
Marcial won a bronze after dropping a split decision to Ukraine’s Oleksandr Khyzhniak in the middleweight semis.
The country’s one gold, two silver, and one bronze medal finish, good for 50th place overall and No. 1 among Southeast Asian nations in the most unusual of Games, stand as the best campaign of the Philippines since it joined the Olympics in 1924.
